


im just staring back at the ceiling staring back at me

by sapoeysap



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, sort off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 23:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12804609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: flying down and then not even making it through the door? when did u turn into me hurley?pete's text cuts through like a knife





	im just staring back at the ceiling staring back at me

**Author's Note:**

> a follow on from my drabble
> 
>  
> 
> [up all night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968152)
> 
>  
> 
> which you can read though i guess some of this works on its own
> 
> this is like an odd pairing but my like poly ass needed content and so i wrote content  
> (if u see any mistakes give me a heads up and i will correct)

The laptop feels heavy in his lap, Old Republic’s gameplay not satisfying enough for Andy. It’s about the time where he would normally be on skype call to Joe, except he’s not today, and hasn’t been in three weeks. It’s stubbornness on his part, and totally not him ignoring, as he has done for the past 19 days, the little ring of a skype call under the game music.

There’s a buzzing in the background, disturbing his distracted peace. It’s his phone, another oddly uncharacteristic cryptid message from Patrick, they’ve been trickling in for the past two weeks. All along the lines off, you should talk to Joe or stop ignoring him. Andy just responds that he isn’t. Patrick reply using sad face emoji’s is hauntingly bizarre. It strikes Andy as so Pete-like, that his brain spirals. And twenty minutes later he has a plane ticket to LA for the next day. Pete will know what to do, how to sort through these feelings that Andy so wants to ignore. He packs on some kind of autopilot. Not really aware of what’s going in his bag. Just that he needs to leave Portland right now and have Pete talk sense into him. It feels like one seconds he’s at home, the next his hands coming to knock on Pete’s door.

It’s when the door opens and it’s not Pete there but Joe, a worn down ragged looking Joe, with Ruby and Declan peering out curiously from behind his ankles, does Andy’s world come crashing down around him. He can hear just how high pitched his voice goes, as he squeaks out a “Tell Pete I stopped by”, before turning on his heel and walking back down the driveway, ignoring the cries of “Uncle Andy” from his bandmates kids, and ignoring the sting of the fact that Joe says nothing at all.

His phone buzzes half an hour later, when he’s sat down in some café to regroup his thoughts.

           _flying down and then not even making it through the door? when did u turn into me hurley?_

Pete’s text cuts through like a knife. Especially the follow up.

  _U should come back, and I know u don’t wanna but u need to talk to Joe. He’s left anyways. Taken the kids to the park._

And so Andy drops enough money to cover his drink on the table, and walks out and back into the sun of LA, catching a cab over to Pete’s, who opens his front door mysteriously sheepishly.

“Hey”

Andy should have known Pete would pull the rug from under his world, because the bassist pushes him into the living room, except instead of the Joe he expected it's Marie. Sat perched on the edge of a sofa, hand running over a throw in some mindless pattern. She's gazing at him calmly and so unlike the first words she speaks. "He wants a divorce. Clean and easy, says there's someone else but he's not sure they love him back." And Andy’s never one for words even though Marie gives him the pause to be. "Except you and I both know that you’re the someone else and that I know you'd be willing to give up everything for him" her eyes are glassy now. Tears threatening to fall. These are situations Pete Wentz's get themselves in to. Not Andy Hurley's. "I would be happy if he was happy. And I know you guys would take care of Ruby. So I have no room to complain" "You have a right though" is the first words he can muster. She just laughs, steps up from the sofa, dislodging the throw from her lap.

The hug she gives him is warmth despite the tears that are joining his, and this shirt is beyond ruined. She's warm and close and he can't help but push a kiss into her neck. Close comfort out of friendship. But then shes turning their heads, looking into his eyes and kissing him. And this really is a Pete Wentz thing, making out with the the man you’re in love with wife. But it feels right, like a connection. And the moment Marie pulls apart blurry eyed some guilty part of Andy just wants to pull her back in close. Her face is mess of emotion, but the way she whispers ‘oh’ with her eyes blown wide, leaves him standing alone in the living room breath sucked from him and heart stuck in staccato. That's how Joe finds him, Ruby trailing behind as they enter the room. And when their eyes connect, Andy thinks his eyes must match the way Joe's look. Heartbreak but hopeful. He wonders how good that line will sound coming from Patrick in a song. If the music will reflect the elation when Joe wrapped himself around Andy pulling them into such an embrace. Ruby’s tugging on his leg and he looks down to see her smiling all toothy and wide before she toddles off to the sofa and sitting in the warmth her mother has just left.

He turns back to face Joe, and what happens is an exact mirror of what happened with Marrie just moments before, but this time it has the tinge of desperation, like they know it’s there only shot at this. Kisses are pressed into lips and necks. To Andy it feels like coming home, the same spark as Marie but it tastes like Joe. This kid he's spent years watching grow. This kid he's spent years falling in love with.

It's insane. The way his life is unravelling in the living room of his bands bassist. The way Joe pulls back and looks contented, so far removed from the Joe he had seen only a few hours ago. The hurt that happens as Joe pulls away, lingering touches both in reality and feeling. Just watching Joe as he scoops up Ruby and retreats from the living room. He stands alone for a long time. Numb to the world. The will to move steadily steeps back into him. It's past sunset, L.A skies illuminated by light pollution. He already misses Portland. He should go back. He's overstayed his welcome and he knows it. Knew it in the way Joe kissed him with such a sense of finality.  And then Pete's there and pushing a phone under Andy's nose. It's his own phone with a simple text from an unknown number. " _Come over. Please. M x_ " Pete's smiling, the kind that says, "you know maybe you should" and not in the classic Wentz way. So, Andy goes.

 

There in bed together, Andy shoved in the middle. Joe chugging on a e-cig in what he thinks is a discrete manner, boxers pulled on haphazardly. Marie's wrapped up around him, all soft. He's staring at the love bites he created, and the ones on his own body from them. It's good. He hopes it lasts more than a night. When it does it feels good. But he has to go back to Portland, keep the ties there. Joe and Marie’s relationship seems fixed, and maybe they don't need him anymore says the voice in his head again and again, even as he trails his fingers through Marie’s hair or teaches Ruby how to play drums.

He sneaks out, unfair of him, cowardly, back to Portland. He lets the Skype dates start up again, after Joe whispered in his ear one night the week before that he knew of all of Andy's gazes. And Marie had nibbled on his neck and murmured a resounding oh we all knew. The Skype calls are good. Short. Like it's harder to say what he needs. But he never said it when he was with them in the first place.

It goes on like this for weeks, until one night, laptop threating to burn a hole in his jeans Ruby appears over Joe's shoulder, teddy bear clutched in one hand, red rimmed tired eyes. Instead of the "daddy I can't sleep" Andy expects, she comes over to Joe's laptop screen, peers in, her little eyes wide with pixels. "Dad come home please" Joe's laughing and telling her he will. But Andy's world has stopped. Because suddenly this is everything he ever wanted, and had never known he had needed. There's a message thread on his phone from months ago, an unknown number. He texts it. " _Flight gets in at 11. I'll be home soon. A x_ "

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from up all night by counting crows
> 
> i toyed with changing the kids names cause i feel wierd about it  
> but i haven't tagged them so
> 
> (tagged as joe/andy otherwise i'd probably never get views)


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